Inspection of electrical characteristics of an electronic circuit, such as an IC, LSI, or the like, formed on, for example, a semiconductor wafer is performed by using a probe card mounted on a probe device. The probe card, in general, includes a plurality of probes and a contactor holding the probes. The contactor has a bottom surface, on which the probes are held, facing the wafer. And, inspection of electrical characteristics of the wafer is performed by bringing the plurality of probes into contact with electrodes of the electronic circuit formed on the wafer and applying an electrical inspection signal to a corresponding electrode of the electronic circuit formed on the wafer from each of the probes through the contactor.
When the electrical characteristics of the electronic circuit are measured, in order to establish electrical connection between the electrodes of the wafer and the probes, a scrubbing process for exposing conductive portions of the electrodes by cutting off aluminum oxide films formed on surfaces of the electrodes is necessary. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 9, a probe 100 including a beam portion 102 cantilevered on a contactor 101, and a contact 103 protruding and extending from the beam portion 102 toward a wafer W is used (Patent Document 1). Then, overdrive is applied so that the contact 103 and an electrode P of the wafer W are pressure-contacted to each other, and thus the beam portion 102 bends about a fixed end of the beam portion 102 to move the contact 103. Accordingly, an aluminum oxide film on a surface of the electrode P is cut off by a front end portion 104 of the contact 103, so that a conductive portion of the electrode P and the front end portion 104 of the contact 103 are brought into contact with each other.